General Well'ngone In Love (2 page)

The solicitor put the rest of the money on
the desk.

Berel fairly danced through
the streets as he made his way back to his home. Usually, when he
was out on an errand his entire being was fixated upon all the
fascinating sights that the streets of London had to
offer—
the tantalizing goods on display at
the shops, the deft movements of the carriage drivers as they
maneuvered their prancing horses around a sharp curve, the shouts
of the street hawkers as they cried out their songs of fresh milk
and new potatoes, sharp knives and old clothes, and a dozen other
interesting things. He never tired of the noise and the crowds. He
was too busy feeling exuberantly happy to be a part of this great
and wondrous world.

This day, however, his thoughts were on his
little sitting room in Duke’s Street, where he knew that his sister
Sarah was anxiously awaiting his return. He also knew that she
would want to hear every detail of his interview with Mr.
Barnstock, and he was determined not to disappoint her. Of course,
he would skip over that moment when he had felt his knees knocking
together from fear; much as he tried, he could not help but quake
when Mr. Barnstock glared at him with those steely eyes. But oh how
he would relish telling Sarah every word of the sharp replies he
had given to the solicitor, culminating in that moment of triumph
when ...

“
Mr. Krinkle?”

Berel stopped. For a moment he thought that
someone was speaking to his father. Then he realized that the
person must be speaking to him, and he turned to see who it
was.

“
Upon my word, it is Mr.
Krinkle,” said a young person dressed in an oversized and
over-patched military greatcoat that nearly dwarfed his somewhat
undernourished frame. A bicorne hat that had also seen better days
sat upon the boy’s head, which was now cocked to one side. “Allow
me to express my condolences, sir, on the passing of your father.
May you be comforted among all the mourners of Zion and
Jerusalem.”

“
Thank you, General
Well’ngone.” Berel cast a wary glance at his consoler, who was
accompanied by a young boy also dressed in cast-off clothes. Berel
knew who General Well’ngone was. Everyone knew that the General was
the right-hand man of the Earl of Gravel Lane, a young Jewish man
who headed a band of even younger Jewish thieves. Berel’s free
hand, the one not holding the packet of legal papers, therefore
went to his coat pocket, where the small pouch containing the money
from the solicitor was stored. He had no intention of letting that
money leave his possession and end up in the pocket of the General
instead.

General Well’ngone noticed the gesture and
sadly shook his head. “These are sorry times, Mr. Krinkle, if one
orphan cannot express his sympathy to another, without his
intentions being misunderstood.”

“
My apologies, General,”
replied Berel, still keeping his hand on his pocket. “I did not
mean to offend.”

“
Have you a moment, Mr.
Krinkle? There is a matter I would like to discuss with
you.”

Berel noticed that the General had moved to
one side of him, while the child had sidled up to the other. It was
difficult to keep a close watch on them both. “I am expected at
home,” he replied, trying to move away from them.

“
Excellent,” said General
Well’ngone, taking Berel by the arm. “We shall escort
you.”

They began to walk, and Berel did his best
to keep his hand on the pocket where his money was sitting.

“
London is no place for a
man to be alone,” said the General. “You shall discover the truth
of that, if you have not already.”

“
I am not alone, General
Well’ngone. I have my sister.”

“
All the more reason why
you must think of the future, Mr. Krinkle. A family man is a man
with responsibilities, great responsibilities.”

“
We shall manage,” said
Berel, echoing the words that he had heard his sister say so many
times.

“
Of course, some boys
might not mind living in the Jewish orphanage—little children who
are too small to remember what it is to have a home of their own.
However, someone like you, Mr. Krinkle, who has known the freedom
of being able to come and go as he pleases, should find life in an
orphanage somewhat confining, I should think.”

Berel glanced uneasily at his companion.
“Have you heard something, General? They aren’t planning anything
are they, Mr. Melamed and the others?”

“
I am not in that
gentleman’s confidence. I am only taking advantage of an
opportunity. I saw you walking in the street, and I wished to do
you a good turn. I therefore approached you, as you see. London is
a city full of opportunities, if a person knows how to take
advantage of them. Is that not so, Levy?”

The youngster who was accompanying them
nodded his head. “Full of them.”

“
An orphan’s lot is a
difficult one, but it does not have to be a miserable one,” the
General continued. “The Earl of Gravel Lane is always on the
lookout for young men with keen eyes and sharp wits. If you should
ever find yourself in the neighborhood of Gravel Lane and would
like to discuss this matter further, I am certain the Earl would be
pleased to receive you.”

The General looked up. At the top of a
rather dilapidated building a window had been flung open. A young
lady was glaring down at them, with her hands planted firmly on her
hips.

“
Are you acquainted with
that young person?” asked the General.

“
That’s Sarah, my
sister.”

Sarah disappeared from the window.

“
Does she always glare at
people in that manner?”

“
Only when she is very
angry. I had better go.”

At that moment Sarah returned to the window,
with a bucket in her hand.

“
Berel! Come here this
instant!” she shouted. “As for you, General Well’ngone, if I ever
catch you talking to my brother again, you’ll get this bucket of
slops on your head! Understand?!”

While Berel ran into the building, General
Well’ngone instinctively raised his hand to his head, to protect
his hat. Yet he did not move. Instead, he continued to stare at the
young lady in the window.

“
Go away! Now!”

His young companion, who did not wish to get
drenched by the unsavory contents of the bucket, tugged at the
General’s sleeve. “Let’s get out of here,” he pleaded. “She’ll do
it. Look at her eyes.”

But that was the problem. The General was
looking at the young lady’s eyes. He had fallen in love.

“Close the window, Sarah. I’m home.”

Sarah turned around and scowled at her
younger brother. But she did put down the bucket, to Berel’s
relief.

“
Do close the window,
Sarah. You’re letting in all the cold air.”

Sarah took one last look down at the street.
She made a face at General Well’ngone, who was still standing
below, and then she slammed the window shut.

“
Have you lost your
senses, Berel? I thought you knew better than to associate with
that band of thieves.”

“
It wasn’t me who was
associating. The General wanted to say his condolences. I could
hardly stop him from doing that, could I?”

“
What else did he want to
say?” Sarah demanded.

Berel knew his sister was doing her best to
keep them together in their own home. And perhaps he had been wrong
to walk down the street with a well-known thief—if Mr. Melamed
heard about that, he might very well be carted off to the
orphanage. But Berel felt he was no longer a child who must report
every word of a conversation to his older sister, and so he changed
the subject by waving the package from the solicitor in front of
Sarah’s eyes. “Wouldn’t you rather know what Mr. Barnstock had to
say?”

“
Did you really do it?”
she asked, while trying to grab the packet. “Did you convince him
to give us more work?”

Berel removed the little money pouch with
his free hand and dangled that before his sister’s eyes as well.
“And on the same terms!”

“
You are wonderful!”
exclaimed Sarah, giving her brother a hug. “With work, we truly
shall manage. Oh, Berel, I am so happy. And Mother and Father would
have been so proud of you. Were you not even a little
afraid?”

“
Of course not,” he said,
placing the package and the money on the table in what he hoped was
a suitably indifferent manner. “Old sour face can’t scare
me.”

“
We cannot call him that
any longer. It is thanks to Mr. Barnstock that we will be able to
stay here, and we must be grateful.” Sarah turned her attention to
the packet of papers. “I think I shall begin work now, while there
is still light.”

However, before she could remove the ink and
pen from the cupboard, there was a knock at the door.

The visitor, whose name was Mrs. Hutner and
who lived in the rooms below the Krinkles, did not wait to be
invited inside. Her eye had seen the money pouch, and she walked
straight over to it and dumped the contents onto the table.

“
Just as I thought,” she
said, turning to Berel. “I saw you with that young
good-for-nothing, Berel Krinkle. If you think you can try their
thieving tricks on Duke’s Street, you’ll be sorry.” She then turned
her angry eye on Sarah and said, “This is a fine way for a Jewish
girl to behave, with your father not even a month dead!”

The two young people watched in silence as
the elderly woman stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind
her.

“
Shall we tell her the
truth, Sarah?”

“
We cannot. We promised
Mr. Barnstock that no one would know that I am the one doing the
copy work.”

“
Do you think she will
tell Mr. Melamed?”

“
It is not Mr. Melamed
that worries me. I only hope she will not tell a constable
...”

Sarah went back to the window and gazed
anxiously down at the street. To her relief, she did not see Mrs.
Hutner or a constable or anything that looked like more than the
usual activity. When she was satisfied that they were safe, at
least for that evening, she returned to her brother and said,
“Berel, please do not speak with General Well’ngone again, or any
of his associates. Do not be taken in by their words. They do not
mean you well.”

Berel raised himself to his full height,
wishing that he could find a few more inches so he could look his
sister in the eye. “What do you take me for, Sarah? I know better
than to fall into one of General Well’ngone’s traps. Didn’t I bring
home the money safe and sound?”

“
Yes, you did. Father
would have been proud of you for that, too.”

“
Father would have been
proud of you, too, Sarah. The way you told off the General was a
glory. I don’t think he’ll dare come anywhere near Duke’s Street
again.”

III.

The Earl of Gravel Lane looked over at his
second in command with disdain. “If I am boring you, General, pray
do not let me keep you from your more important business.”

General Well’ngone awoke from his reverie
with a start. “I was listening, Earl. The previous owner of this
gold fob must have been a scientific gentleman on account of the
seal’s having a half moon and three stars.”

The Earl picked up one of the half dozen
gold fobs sitting upon the table. “This was the fob with the stars,
General Well’ngone. I set it aside a good ten minutes ago. The one
I have been discussing is of interest for quite a different
reason.”

“
I don’t see that it
matters what sort of pictures the seals make. We’re going to unload
them all, anyway.”

The Earl gave a sigh. In his mind, he did
not see himself as a common thief, an unwanted blight upon the
pretty landscape of the beau monde, whose richly filled pockets
provided both food and shelter for the Earl and his boys. Although
he may have lifted his noble title from one of the poorest,
sorriest streets in London—and though his threadbare coat and wig,
which harked back to the previous century, had been lifted from the
piles of cast-off clothing that even the old clothes men had no use
for—the Earl liked to think that he had a gentleman’s sensibility.
And so when it came to appreciating the watches and snuff boxes and
seals that his boys brought back to him at the end of their day’s
work in the streets of London, he considered himself on an equal
footing with the gentlemen whose pockets had yielded up to him
their treasures.

“
True, General, but for
the moment these pretty things are ours and so we should enjoy
them.” The Earl picked up one of the less ornate fobs. “And if I am
not mistaken, this fob has caught your fancy, though I cannot see
why.”

General Well’ngone blushed. It was true.
This one fob did hold him in its grip. To his eyes, the swirls and
curves of its golden form suggested the shape of a certain person
whose acquaintance he had recently made, a young lady with a proud
head and arms placed defiantly upon her hips.

“
It looks like the
fishmonger’s wife,” said Saulty, another member of the band, who
was also sitting in the room. “A real scold,” he added.

“
She’s not a scold! And
she’s not ...” The General stopped in mid-sentence. The cynically
raised eyebrows of the Earl struck him as fiercely as a blast of
grapeshot from a Frenchman’s cannon.

“
She?” inquired the
Earl.